Where the sidewalk ends : the poems & drawings of Shel Silverstein

　　《往上跌一跤》(Falling Up )、《人行道的盡頭》(Where the Sidewalk Ends)、《閣樓上的月光》(A light in the attic)並稱為「謝爾童詩畫三部曲」。
 
　　夜深人靜的時候，我喜歡回味謝爾叔叔的人生哲理。他總是用最淺顯卻又令人印象深刻的方式說。當然囉，他會彈吉他、寫歌又唱歌，所以他說的跟唱的一樣好聽。他說種了鑽石田的塞門爺爺，在長滿金銀珠寶的〈果園〉裡作夢，夢到的卻是一棵真的桃子。他又說只有快樂沒有憂愁的〈快樂國〉可能很無聊，不見得快樂…
 
★本書中譯本由玉山社出版

　　Irreverent, hilarious and wildly popular, Silverstein’s collection of verse is hard to put down. His black pen drawings are an integral part of the poems, which range from funny and gross to introspective or tender. Silverstein is a master at tickling the funny bone, and his book is definitely not just for kids!

Including 12 New Poems!

If you are a dreamer, come in,
If you are a dreamer,
A wisher, a liar,
A hope-er, a pray-er,
A magic bean buyer . . .

　　Come in . . . for where the sidewalk ends, Shel Silverstein’s world begins. You’ll meet a boy who turns into a TV set, and a girl who eats a whale. The Unicorn and the Bloath live there, and so does Sarah Cynthia Sylvia Stout who will not take the garbage out. It is a place where you wash your shadow and plant diamond gardens, a place where shoes fly, sisters are auctioned off, and crocodiles go to the dentist.

　　Shel Silverstein’s masterful collection of poems and drawings is at once outrageously funny and profound.

 
作者簡介

謝爾．希爾弗斯坦(Shel Silverstein)

　　在美國是極受歡迎的繪圖作家，他的讀者群不只是孩子，還有那些買書給小孩子的大人們。除了童詩畫三部曲外，謝爾其他著作如《一隻朝後開槍的獅子》(Lafcadio : the lion who shot)、《愛心樹》(The Giving Tree)、《失落的一角》(The Missing Piece)、《失落的一角會見大圓滿》(The Missing Piece Meets The Big O)等書都膾炙人口，被譯成十幾種語文版，讀者廣佈於全世界各地。

　　”And now, children, your Uncle Shelby is going to tell you a story about a very strange lion -- in fact, the strangest lion I have ever met.” So begins one of Shel Silverstein’s very first children’s books, Lafcadio, the Lion Who Shot Back. It’s funny and sad and has made readers laugh and think ever since it was published in 1963.

　　It was followed the next year by two other books. The first, The Giving Tree, is a moving story about the love of a tree for a boy. In an interview published in the Chicago Tribune in 1964, Shel talked about the difficult time he had trying to get the book published. ”Everybody loved it, they were touched by it, they would read it and cry and say it was beautiful. But . . . one publisher said it was too short . . . .” Some thought it was too sad. Others felt that the book fell between adult and children’s literature and wouldn’t be popular. It took Shel four years before Ursula Nordstrom, the legendary editor at Harper Children’s books, decided to publish it. She even let him keep the sad ending, Shel remembered, ”because life, you know, has pretty sad endings. You don’t have to laugh it up even if most of my stuff is humorous.” Ultimately both adults and children embraced The Giving Tree. Shel returned to humor that same year with A Giraffe and a Half.